Rome chose to embrace the reference to his missing brother rather than let her think, in an awkward silence or avoidance, that he gave a rat's ass. "Psh, yeah, leave it to my moronic brother to scar you even more!" he said, forcing a laugh that sounded legit to him.

"You don't have to clean them every time you use them, but you know, the more the better. I usually give 'em a scrubdown after every hunt, even if they don't need them. You want to keep everything well-oiled and cleaned. You know, like a car."

Rome looked at Elenna, to get a gauge on how she was doing. She appeared to be doing fine, maybe even relaxed a little. Not quite enjoying herself, but, of course, they were cleaning guns, and that wasn't fun for anyone.

"Okay, now all the parts are nice and clean, you put it back together. And here's where we work the magic!" Rome's eyes shimmered. "It's like a transformer or something, it's really freaking awesome. So." Rome produced a bullet. "This is the .44 caliber round, that my Eagle normally takes. This is a .50 cal. How would you like to see this gun decide it wants to shoot the bigger bullets? Because I know I want to!"

Without waiting for her reply, Rome rummaged around the bag until he found the parts he was looking for. "Raws and I, twins, right? So everything we've ever gotten is the same, except his is usually green and mine's usually blue. So when we turned 20 our dad got us each a Desert Eagle--we later bought the extra parts ourselves, but that's beside the point. I think the police confiscated my Desert Eagle when we were hunting that Skinwalker in New Mexico, so this is Rawson's. But I'm pretty sure I still have--" one more piece... "Ha! Victory!"

Like a magic act, Rome pulled away from the pile the barrel, the magazine, and the bolt assembly stuff, and replaced them with other, slightly larger ones.

"Check it," he grinned. "Now put that puppy together for me. And congratulations, chica, you're building a different gun than you started out with!"

"And I meant the answer seriously," Rome replied, confused for a moment before he remembered: Ah. Yeah. Forgot. Recalibrate to allow for crazy and...

"I know you're trying," he added. "And you're doing a good job. I'm proud of you. Not that I'd expect anything less," he said, grinning at her fondly. But before it became too much of a sparkle-moment, "I mean, it's not like even you could screw this up," he teased.

Rome laughed. "Nahh, I'm not worried, we already know you're a lousy shot. You totally had a chance to take me out and you missed! I was like three feet in front of you and you barely...ow! Hey!" Rome yelped and fell back to escape the reach of her fist. "Hey, hey, injured guy here, remember?" He pleaded, laughing, trying to stop her raining blows down on him with his one free hand.

Lenna grinned, holding his gun that was half put back together. “You are a jerk, do you know that?”

Rome laughed. “Yeah I heard that one before.”

She turned her attention back to the gun in her hand. She looked at the book again but it didn’t help her to figure out where to put some kind of little pin. She bit on her lower lip and tried to find a place for it.

“That’s the firing pin.”

“I know that, just looking for...”

Lenna blushed a little. She had really no idea where it belonged. She looked a little helpless at Rome.

"And you'd be right," Rome held out his hand for the weapon and she handed it to him. He pointed the weapon at the light and pulled the trigger.

Elenna flinched, but nothing happened, and Rome laughed.

"Okay, and that was gun not-safety 101, but if the firing pin's not in there, thing won't fire. And this one's kinda tricky, and in fact, I think you're sitting on the--" Rome lifted her feet and produced another small piece of equipment, "firing pin spring. All these little guys fit together." Rome opened the gun back up and struggled to put it back together one-handed before handing it off to Elenna again. "Urgh, see, can't do it, now you understand why I'm pissed? Look, see, the pin goes inside the spring and through the stop, and then you hold it together until it..."

But she had already flicked the thing together like it was a baby's Transformer toy.

Rome laughed, a little surprised, but then, not so surprised. "Oh, look at me," he whined in a sarcastic falsetto, "Miss scared-of-guns, and I don't know how they work and ooh, Rome, help me, I'm so dumb and can't do anything, waah, waah--OW!" Rome recoiled his leg where she had socked him in the shin and rubbed the offended area.

“Be glad it was just your shin and not your nuts. So is this one done, now? How do I know I put it back the right way together?” She grinned at him.

She put the gun very slowly and careful on the floor pointing away from them, and then turned around to him. Her grin got even wider. “And that’s for making me do this.” Lenna giggled and started tickling him. Which was so easy since he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Rome didn't actually think she'd hit him in the nuts--that was just a bluff, right?--but he never could be sure with girls. And then she fed him the perfect line for him to say, "well, we take it outside and shoot with it, of course!"

But then she jumped on him, and as he threw his right arm up to defend himself, he realized she wasn't hurting him but she was tickling him.

Rome was confused, mainly. And then she found that sweet spot on his sides, luckily where none of the healing ribs were, and squeezed. His body jerked, spasmed, he was pretty sure he upset something in his shoulder but he was laughing.

"Whoa, wait, what're you doing? Ahh! No, wait, lemme up! Foul!"

Now he was on the floor, on his back, and she was on top of him, and he was still laughing and quickly getting too weak to push her off of him, which, since she weighed all of ninety pounds, was pretty sad.

"Hey, stop! No fair! Injured guy! Ow, ow, ooh, hee, hee hee haha ow!"

Rome was just wondering whether discretion was the better part of valor in this situation or not when the door banged open, and they both froze. It took him a moment to realize how awkward this must look.

His eyes tracked up the long legs of the intruder (his brain recognized those legs anywhere: Aly), until he was grinning up the skirt of Alyson Wesson, who was frowning and had her arms folded.

"Gross, you two, get a room."

"Ugh, no!" Rome exclaimed, reclaiming his strength enough to shove her off of him. "She started it!"

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

"Was that an invitation?" Rome grinned hopefully.

Aly rolled her eyes, but he saw--or imagined, anyway--a slight flush on her cheeks. "Just...don't do anything stupid, okay? Go crash on the couch and I might forget I found you."

"Yes, ma'am," Rome said, Tom-Paris-to-Captain-Janeway.

When Aly was gone, Rome tugged on a lock of Lenna's hair. "Look, see what you did? Now you got me in trouble!" he scolded, without any shred of seriousness.

She helped him up when she looked on the gun again. “How do we know I put it back together right and it works? I… I mean… we don't have to try it, do we?" Lenna looked worried at Rome. "I-I have to admit that they are interesting in the inside, but I did shoot with it you know just 4 days ago. And you know what it just worked fine. So fine that I even saw some blood.”

The smile was gone from her face. “I’m sorry I know you try to help, and I’m such a baby about it. Come on let’s get you on the couch and maybe a shirt you get cold and just were sick.”

"Oh, I love girls any which way, chica, I'm not a fussy man, you know that!" Rome grinned sleazily, trying to wipe his mind of the mental image of him doing the no-pants-dance with Elenna.

But when she suddenly waxed pitiful, he knew he'd pushed her pretty hard today, and brought her into a close embrace. "I'm sorry you're a baby, too," he couldn't resist joking, before, "but I'm proud of you. My drill sergeant once told me that bravery was as bad as stupidity, and he didn't want any of us to be brave. He said that he'd rather us be total pussies and just lie to him about it. That's all being brave is. It's being a pussy about something but not letting anyone know. So, like, you're half-way there," he laughed. "Seriously, though, I am proud of you." He didn't look at her when he said it, in case this turned into a massive chick-flick moment, instead bending down to throw the guns and cleaning equipment into the duffle. He'd clean the rest later when Elenna was asleep.

"Okay," he said, straightening and turning back to her. "What's this? Resting on the couch? Clothes? Chicken noodle soup? Playing Halo until four in the morning?"

Last edited by Maeglin on Tue 15 Nov 2011, 6:00 am; edited 1 time in total

Lenna grinned proud and glad all the guns were back in the duffle. “Before I say yes to couch resting, getting you more clothes, and chicken noodle soup and playing Halo all night, I have to say. I was awesome.” The last bit was more some kind of singing. “I took your gun apart, cleaned it and put it back together and surprisingly it looks like a gun again and I didn’t run away hiding.”

Lenna beamed at him. “Okay now couch for you, I’ll get you soup and clothes. And I want some real food, like a sandwich or burger. So come on.”

Thanks to all those who participated in or read What Goes Around Comes Around!